SWTOR crafting guide

This is a simple swtor crafting guide, which will teach you the basics about crafting in SWTOR. It will teach you how to craft, what the skills are with a brief description, as well as recommended skill for your type of character. Crew Skills can be divided into three categories. Crafting Skills, Gathering Skills, and Mission Skills. You must have an available crew member in order to perform crafting or missions.

How to craft
Crafting is basically the same as a lot of MMOs and is probably closest to Fallen Earth and Grand Fantasia in nature. You select a recipe, make sure you have the proper materials, and send a crew member off to craft the selected item. You can do other things while the item is being made, including log off. You can queue up to five recipes per crew member.

You can learn new recipes from the skill trainer, through special item drops, and from reverse engineering. The skill trainer generally has new recipes to teach you every 10 to 20 skill points.
The gathering skills are all linked to gathering for specific crafting skills. To gather, find a node in the world and right click it. You can also open the crew management interface to send crew members to gather items, although the yield is low enough that I’d suggest using this as a last resort.

Gathering Skills are:

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Scavenging – Metals and synthetics used in Armormech, Armstech, and Cybertech

Archaeology – Crystals and fragments used in Synthweaving and Artifice.

Bioanalysis – Chemicals used in biochem.

Slicing – Lockboxes that contain either credits or a small item. Right click a lockbox to open it.

Mission Skills are:

Treasure Hunting – Gives lockboxes like slicing does. Also finds gemstones that are used in blasters and cybertech items, and may be use in artifice items.

Investigation – Finds rare plastics used in creating armor for Smugglers, Agents, Sentinels, and Marauders. Also finds random schematics for any crafting skill.

Diplomacy – All diplomacy missions give dark side or light side points. Some diplomacy missions give rare silks used in Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor armor.

*Slicing is a mission skill as well as a gathering skill. Once you get slicing to around 80 skill level, missions start appearing which reward “Mission Discoveries”. Other players can use these items to unlock special one shot “bonanza” crew missions that reward more and rarer items than normal missions.

Mission skills are also linked to crafting, but not to the same skills that the gathering skills are. All mission skills have missions that reward companion gifts, and all have missions that reward something used by a crafting skill. To send a companion on a mission, select the mission skill from the crew management screen and select the mission you’d like the companion to go on.

Reverse Engineering

SW:TOR has a fairly unique feature in its crafting system called Reverse Engineering. The way it works is fairly simple. Once you learn a crafting crew skill, a Reverse Engineering icon appears in the upper right hand corner of your inventory. Clicking the Reverse Engineering icon will gray out everything except what you can reverse engineer. Right clicking an item will then disassemble the object and return materials of the appropriate level and item category.

What makes the RE system interesting is that reverse engineering an item you are capable of crafting gives a small chance of learning to craft an even better version of that item. Disassembling a Premium(green) item gives a chance to learn a Prototype(blue) version. Disassembling a Prototype item gives a chance to learn an Artifiact(Purple) version.

The better version will consist of the original item with a prefix added. The item will have its original stats, and stat points related to the prefix added on to the item to make it equivalent to an item of the same rarity and level. For instance, if a Jedi belt normally has 30 total stat points, and a rare version of a belt the same level has 40 total stat points, than a Gammorean rare version of the belt would have the original stats plus approximately 5 Strength and 5 Endurance.

What crafting skills can RE:

Armormech – Any armor with aim or cunning.

Armstech – Any blaster.

Synthweaving – Any armor with strength or willpower.

Artifice – Any lightsaber. Any focus. Any wrist or boots with strength or willpower.

Cybertech – Any earpiece. Any shield generator. Any wrist or boots with aim or cunning

Biochem – Any implant

Currently item modifications cannot be reverse engineered. Most random item drops with prefixes can not be reverse engineered, but the number that can is growing.

Recommended crew skill combinations:

This is a simple list of combinations for providing gear for yourself or your companions, with a general goal of self sufficiency.